Closing parks and monuments proves absurdity of government

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Our federal government has reached the brink of absurdity.

While our elected members of Congress are playing a pitiful game of “I’ll take my ball and go home,” everyday Americans are experiencing some of the most ludicrous fallout from the economic standoff taking place in Washington, D.C.

Even jogging on park trails is now off limits.

A 56-year-old Chadds Ford man was out for a jog at Valley Forge National Historical Park. He’s a marathon runner. He parked in a lot where there weren’t any barriers and got out of his car and went for a run.

When he returned, he said there were two park rangers waiting for him.

They fined him $100 because the park was closed under orders from the Obama administration.

We’re all very well aware of the government shutdown. The Republicans are blaming the Democrats and the Democrats are blaming the Republicans for not being able to come to an agreement on how we should fund our federal government. As a result, some 800,000 “non-essential” federal workers are on furlough.

We won’t even rail on the fact that we have nearly a million “non-essential” federal workers, but to our point, some of those workers belong to the National Park Service.

Since the federal parks couldn’t open their gift shops, visitors’ centers and public restrooms, someone in the White House decided they would have to close them down, and not allow the people, who have already paid for these massive expanses of open space with their tax dollars, to set foot in the parks.

We can certainly understand not opening the gift shops, visitor centers and public restrooms, but where is the common sense in prohibiting people from enjoying the actual land?

In Washington, D.C., every monument has been closed to the public.

These monuments are for the most part open-air and do not require admission, or even doors to open.

Barricades were set up around as many of the monuments as possible so visitors could not get near them, including a group of elderly veterans who came to the nation’s capital to visit the World War II Memorial.

It was at that point our federal government reached the height of absurdity, a pinnacle, unfortunately, they did not have to travel too far to attain.